We found the PVA – and our crafty fingers!
Hurray!
Moo went into nursery without a backward glance today – she was upset when we collected her cos her painting was very wet still and she didn’t want to leave it till ext time, but with a bit of patience we dealt with it :~) She has been tired but full of it this afternoon and has told me about a fair number of things she has done. So i feel pretty good about it – we are meeting the transport ladies later in the week and once we have that part of it resolved i think we will be okay. She is very full of the lady who is her keyworker, who seems really nice. Its quite funny though, she is really young and i am used, from playgroup to older women – i can’t quite get my head around “teacher” being younger than me! It made me sad how many kids were being led in crying – i just couldn’t do that now – but so long as i take a “whole” child in and get the same back out, i feel it might work – i was really pleased to see, when i arrived and Moo was upset about the painting, that her keyworker was down on the floor next to her being very gentle and reassuring etc. Good beginnings. It doesn’t change the fact she will be HE’ed – but i am prepared to use it as a resource for a time i feel is difficult at best and not great for Moo at all. The weight of anxiety about her being left to her own devices while i do stuff with Pud is gone – its amazing how hard it is to work with three of different ages – cos the older two want to do the same but Moo gets frustrated – whereas with Pud and Scruff (Bubbas new name) – Scruff just plays next to us while i can concentrate on giving Pud a good experience.
I guess when Moo emerges from “reception” level at this place, if she stays two years, Scruff will be going in and I’l get good quality time with 2 … whats the word…..”workwithable!!!!… kids while she gets something special. I love having my children at home – i feel immensely good about the decision, but there is no doubt its hard and good resources, in terms of places people are happy to spend time, are worth theri weight in gold. Pud have such a positive experience at her playgroup, she was there 3 years – she has good, schooled friends from there, a good sense of what is “done” in those environments and an understanding of adult leaders etc – its not the only way, but for me its been a happy medium that leaves me confident she can now continue throguh brownies, tumbletots, cadets or whatever with a feeling of confidence about it.
We have had such a lot of success with our no tv thing – pats sarah and jenny very hard for inadvertently pushing me back into this. in fact, i needed 30mins this morning and offered telly and got turned down. They have been playing really nicely, used the garden lots, drawn, read, made things, used their toys far more. A major success.
Today we all sat down with a big load of laces and pony beads and Pud made her first ever bead weave with it – she did really really well – it was good and she stuck at it for ages too. I was also doing one, Moo made a necklace really carefully and was very proud of it and Scruff sat transfering beads about for ages – we had a nice time. In fact – i shall take photos later.
This afternoon Pud and i made a pomander very like this one Pomander and while we were at it we had a long talk about using flowers and herbs for medicine, medieval toilets (or lack of them), the fact that daddy does very smelly… er… i mean… germs, sewers and alsorts more. Must look up some stuff about herbal medicine to talk about. Then, because we are encasing our pomander in muslin, we had this extrordinary twist where she wanted to know EVERYTHING that we would need to make a shirt… and she came up with really good stuff, including a machine to make the material, thread, pins, paper to draw it on and a person to work in the shop to sell it. I thought that was impressive thinking! We also picked lavender that we grew to make lavender bags on thursday and picked some more to leave to dry properly.
Oh yes – yesterday we tried out the buttons and beads glued to things idea and decorated several opitec boxes – everyone did one and it was good sticky fun – we had intended to varnish them… but erm.. mummy couldn’t get the anti-solvent sniffer lid off (i daresay anyone who wanted to sniff it could have though!) so we will have to do that later – we are going to paint them gold as well. i shall have to do piccies of those too.
Einstein is still a big deal – we tend to do it in the early evening – gives us some nice quiet time – she is doing well at it and i am quite chuffed with myself because the ways i am giving her as mechanisms for doing certain sums seem to be working for her – considering my anxieties about maths i feel really pleased its actually a past time i enjoy doing with her.
Thought for the day – i will NOT scream at my daughter about her room, becasue being screamed at did not make me tidy… i WILL continue to employ the “you have half an hour to find a home for everything in that black bag” routine… even if it kills me!
